SoulSharer: Shadow Kings

SoulSharer: Shadow KingsChapter 1

        Equus, Frozen North, 19:46 hours

        The wind howled across the unforgiving plains of the Frozen North, the icy bitterness cutting and freezing the bones of anypony or anything that came to it’s wake. The moon was not visible that night, the dense clouds blocking out any chance for natural light. Snow whipped across the plains, tearing into the icy fields that lied miles away, nearing the actual frozen soil that lied on the outskirts of the Crystal Empire. Only a statue garden lay on these outskirts, the only evidence that ponies once thrived in these now frozen plains. With the winds raging that night, nothing could survive the frozen intensity.

        Nothing, except a curved broken horn.

        At the border where the frozen soil met the ice fields, under a pile of snow, lay a curved red broken horn, frozen, lost from its owner. The tip stuck out from the snow, the only evidence that it was physically there. The raging winds had tried to wear it away, but it remained after a very long time, proving it was still surviving. The horn once belonged to a king, a tyrant who took control of the Empire miles away and made it simply vanish from existence for 1,000 years. It would not go down without a fight. And that fight against the Frozen North, it was losing.

        As the winds began to howl at their peak intensity, they suddenly slowed, flowing to a stop. It was incredible, the unforgiving winds of the Frozen North suddenly stopping. Even the snow it carried was suspended in mid-air, as if an overpowered magic had simply decided to stop the air itself.

The world seemed to freeze in that moment; the dark clouds above stopping entirely, the snow suspended in form, it was all-too impossible.

Just as impossible as everything in the most merciless place on Equus stopping was, the clouds began to part.

The Frozen North became something unreal. The winds never stopped howling nor the clouds ever parting. And yet, the clouds parted in the skies of the frozen plains, separating like a rip in the sky tearing apart at the seams of reality.

But reality was not tearing apart. It was an intense anomaly, one of impossible proportions that was indeed real. The clouds were parting for the first time in over 10,000 years. And the moonlight fell upon the one object struggling to survive.

The broken horn.

The horn glowed beneath the moonlight, the snow around it illuminated pale blue. The light was slowly absorbed by the horn, alerting the life form inside. But after a few minutes, the horn glowed with a golden aura.

It was faint at first, but soon grew in intensity, the golden aura becoming thicker and brighter with each passing second.

The glow was, to say the least, strange, for multiple reasons. For one, the horn shouldn’t have been glowing by itself without it’s host; two, the original aura color was cobalt blue, not gold; and three, the glow was a force not of Equus, making it all the more mysterious.

The snow quickly began to melt off the horn, revealing it’s full foot-long length. The glow began to melt all snow around the horn, letting it sink until the horn reached the dead, frozen ground. The glow extended from the bottom of the horn as a body began to take shape.

It was twisted and broken at first, but soon the limbs molded to where they were supposed to be, and the body took the form of a pony. The body grew into one of a foal’s, grey fur growing over it and a black mane developing over its head and down its neck. The ground beneath the foal started to glow with the same golden aura, the ground warming. As the foal grew, the ground began to have flecks of green around him. Life itself, in that moment, in that area, was reviving.

The foal soon grew bigger, its limbs extending as it became a small colt. It continued to grow, its small voice getting deeper, the horn finding its proper place on the now young stallion’s head. It finally stopped growing five minutes after it had started, the ground beneath it green with newly grown grass. The stallion awoke after the glow had stopped, his eyes changed back to blue instead of red and green with purple smoke. He turned, examining his new surroundings.

How in the world did I end up here? he asked in his thoughts. The last thing he remembered was fighting his darker self at a lake by the statue gardens on the outskirts of the Crystal Empire.

 He remembered pinning his dark self to the ice, hissing, “It’s over. Return the Crystal Heart now.”

And the darker side merely chuckled, the sound of the ice splitting behind them startling the stallion. He turned to find the ice’s path of destruction heading towards him, and the darker self turned to shadowy binds and holding him there on the ice with no chance of escape. The ice split, and he fell under. That was all he remembered. He was defeated. Or was he?

The stallion shook his head, getting rid of the memory from his focus point. However he had gotten to that point in the Frozen North, he was just thankful he had made it out alive. And by the looks of it, healthy as ever. Only, his horn felt a bit… heavier than usual.

He reached up to touch the horn, making sure it was still his straight, normal horn, and was met with a smooth, curved surface.

Wait. Curved.

The stallion frantically wiped away at the snow in front of him, eager to find some reflective surface that he could use to see why his horn felt curved. As he reached the frozen soil before him, he paused.

The darker side of him had a curved horn.

The stallion began to panic.

Am I the darker side? Am I corrupted and twisted? Can I use dark magic?

The questions flooded his brain, and he had trouble keeping track of which ones were important and which ones came out of nowhere.

Why do I have the image of a human in my brain?

That question snapped the stallion to attention, all other questions fading away like mist. Why did he have the image of a human in his brain? Much less, a teenaged human boy currently sleeping. The image discomforted the stallion, yet intrigued him. The boy had messy black hair, slightly pale tan skin, and rather handsome features. The stallion felt a strange connection with this boy he couldn’t explain, like knowing a face without knowing the person.

As the stallion examined the image further, a faint voice called out to him.

“Sssombraaaah…”

The stallion was started by the use of his name.

“Sssombraaaah… looook uup,” it told him. It was childlike, and yet the gender was indistinguishable.

Sombra was extremely freaked out. How did the voice know his name? And why was it telling him to look up? Possibly regretting listening to the voice, he looked up, and saw the slice in the clouds, that one area that showed the beautiful night, showing the crescent moon, and blacked out.

Aether, New Dveri City, 19:46 hours

Winds whipped across New Dveri City, a slight chill signaling the coming winter. It was not uncommon, these wild winds in the upper level of New Dveri City, but certainly could throw someone off who was not used to the high speed winds. Despite it’s force, the wind did not wear down on the sleek white buildings that showed no sign of seams or windows. These buildings were the product of a new technology that had been developed: the Ultimate Survival. The floating city housed 4.5 million people, over half the original population of the ruined city miles below that was now growing back into the lush forest it once was.

A teenaged boy watched his city through a wall that doubled as a window thanks to his wrist controller. The city hummed with activity, sleek light grey monorails moving from one area to another at high speeds. The only lights that could be seen were the light blue ones that ran across the ground of the floating city, lighting the ground paths that were rarely used, and the tunnels used for monorails and footpaths in the higher parts of the city.

He sighed, in remembrance that his kind once walked the ground paths happily in the old city, on the actual earth. Now, they walked through the skies, trying to restore their once ground homes. He himself had once walked the ground paths of the city, but now walked through the higher paths like the rest of his species. He dared not remember the tragedy on the ground paths that scarred him for life. It was too much of a tragedy that made him known, and the cause for the fame was a burden that he carried with him even today at 14 years of age.

He turned away from the window, knowing staring out of it any longer would cause him emotional distress. The room behind him was rather large, most of the decor grey or black or somewhere in between the two colors. He had always loved those colors, but he hadn’t the slightest idea why. Perhaps it was because he loved the shadows in general.

The boy walked slightly tiredly to the bed, peeling off his obsidian jacket, dark grey shirt, and form fitting glow tennis shoes and throwing them askew as his feet dragged across the smooth flooring. He flopped on the bed, taking off his dark grey wrist controller and setting it on a shelf parallel to eye level of the person on the bed. The shelf held some common items that were precious to the boy- his digiclock, his wrist controller charger, a photo of him and his parents when he was younger, and a unicorn doll.

The boy looked up from his flopped position on the bed to stare at the unicorn doll. His friends questioned why he kept the object- after all, it was a small child’s toy. But the doll held sentimental value for the boy, as it was one of his few non-government issued items.

He picked up the unicorn doll as he got to a somewhat upright position on his bed, examining it with careful hands. It was, in other terms, a plushie doll of a unicorn. The soft, dark grey fur was familiar to the boy, as it was when he was younger and believed as such things as unicorns and other fairy tale creatures from the stories of earth. The doll, like the boy, had onyx hair, complimented with a silver felt band for a crown that had two large spikes at the edge, their predecessors slightly smaller, with two curving spikes in the middle of the crown that held a bright red gem. The unicorn was slightly different than most unicorns the boy had seen, for it had a crimson horn that curved and faded into dark grey at the base, just like the coat color. The unicorn had green button eyes, with red stitching in the middle to keep the buttons on the doll. The unicorn also had felt armor, mainly around it’s neck and hooves, with a soft red cloth cape around it’s back, lined with cotton that was flecked with black.

The boy smiled at the unicorn doll, and in his mind the unicorn smiled back.

“Night, Sombra,” The boy said, shifting in his bed to face the window with the unicorn doll he named Sombra safely in his arms. The boy closed his eyes, and drifted to sleep quickly. He always fell asleep quickly.

But as he slept, the doll glowed with a golden aura, a connection to the creature across the galaxy that it was modeled after.

The boy woke up in a strange area, what seemed like a path of stars beneath him while a sky of endless blue surrounded him, giving no indication that there was any other ground besides the one beneath him. He glanced around, trying to see any other life form, but to his dismay he saw no one else. He felt lost in this dream-like place, but felt a strange force pulling him, like he belonged deeper into the oblivion.

Cautiously, he stepped in the direction the force pulled him in, being very wary of the ground made of stars, but soon found the path to be solid to his pleasure and ease of mind. He began to walk in the direction of the force, it getting stronger and stronger with each step, then broke into a run, like something was chasing him. Little did he know, an all-too familiar unicorn was doing the same thing.

Sombra ran as fast as his legs could carry him, fully trusting whatever force was leading him. Perhaps it was destiny for him to be in this dreamscape? He couldn’t be sure, but whatever the force was, it was getting stronger and stronger. As his pace sped up to the maximum speed he could go, it began to pull him, as in physically pulling him to whatever fate awaited him.

The boy flew through the oblivion, now being pulled by a force that was not of his own knowledge. The gaining speed granted winds that tore against his face, much like what it was like outside the high altitude protected paths that went throughout the city. Tears streamed from his eyes involuntarily, and he felt the skin on his face being pulled back from the force.

“OH GODS, MAKE IT STOP!” The boy and Sombra screamed simultaneously, their voices ringing in each other’s ears.

The boy and Sombra were jerked back suddenly to keep from colliding into each other on impact, which would have been quite a gory mess, calling out sharply upon the force stopping their 200 mph speed. They dropped to the floor, and let out horrible groans of pain. The boy rubbed his head, which had collided with the floor but somehow not bleeding, it throbbing in a dull pain. Sombra clutched his ribcage, positive he had broken a bone or five, despite none of them being shattered in reality.

Once they regained themselves, their pain subduing, they noticed each other, but did not scream, more intrigued with each other than fearful. The boy studied Sombra with an intense curiosity, the latter doing the same to the former. They each carefully got up, their eyes not coming off one another for even a moment.

“Who are you?” The boy asked, his voice never wavering for a second despite his slight fear in the creature.

“Sombra,” Sombra said simply. “Who are you?”

“Xander. Why do you look like the unicorn version of me?”

“Why do you look like the human version of me?”

Xander scoffed lightly. “I’m a Kiro, not a human. Kiros are a bit more advanced than humans, and we’re a few light years away.”

“A Kiro?” Sombra questioned. “Strange name for a race that looks like humans.”

Xander shrugged. “I’m not a scientist, so I can’t really explain it. I’m more of an artist, myself.”

“An artist? Interesting occupation,” Sombra said, his interest piqued.

“Not an occupation quite yet, but I’m hoping it will be,” Xander explained.

Sombra smiled lightly. “You remind me a lot of myself when I was younger.”

“Same,” Xander agreed. “But, with me now, not the younger me, if that even makes any sense.”

“It makes sense,” Sombra assured calmly. “So, ah, getting back on track, what do you draw?”

“Mythological creatures from earth. My parents told me stories about them when I was younger, so I’ve always had a fascination with them. I’m getting good at detailing. Lots of kids at my school think it’s weird for me to draw unicorns and other things like that, but I like it, even if I’m considered homosexual for doing so.”

“Yeah, I was teased a lot when I was in school as well, but for other things, mainly my odd appearance,” Sombra chimed in.

“Well, sometimes I’m bullied for drawing and the fact that my parents…” Xander trailed off, tears forming at the corners of his eyes as he turned away, grief-stricken.

Sombra felt a bit uncomfortable about Xander trailing off, but knew what the boy was going to say with a heavy heart.

“Your parents perished, didn’t they?” Sombra finished.

Xander turned back to face the Unicorn, the tears having filled his eyes and threatened to spill, yet his features were graced with a slight smile.

“... Yeah. They died when I was just a little kid. There was an incident involving some of the ground falling away, and…” Xander didn’t dare continue, tears streaming out of his eyes as he bit his lip.

Sombra’s smile faltered as he turned his head to the ground. “My condolences. I think it’s only fair to tell you I lost my parents at an early age as well. And those who tease you for your parents’ deaths should go to Tartarus.”

Xander chuckled at the unicorn’s last thought and looked up to find Sombra was near tears, trying his best to keep them at bay. Xander’s smile faded at the sight. He wanted so badly to cheer up the Unicorn, but never really got close to another being after his parent’s death. He didn’t know how to comfort the stallion. But there was one way Xander knew how to comfort others: The way his parents comforted him when he was very small.

Xander walked closer to the teary eyed Sombra and wrapped his arms around the Unicorn’s neck, firmly but with a caring tenderness that signaled it to be an awkward hug. Sombra was slightly overtaken with shock at Xander’s sudden action, unknowing of how to react to the situation for a few moments. Then, carefully, he wrapped a foreleg around the boy’s torso, fully accepting the hug.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

“Waugh!” Xander cried, his eyes flying open and sitting up in bed violently. His breathing was instantly heavy, his head swinging back and forth to see the cause of the blaring noise. It was simply his alarm clock, luckily, going bezerk. “Note to self: set alarm to peaceful sound,” he grumbled, slapping the touch-screen clock. It played a cheerful tune in response, as if saying ‘Have a good day! :D!’, while in Xander’s mind it was saying ‘Screw you, I’ll yell as loud as possible to throw you out of your sleep and comfortable bed! :D!’.

Xander groaned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Whatever that dream was he had last night, he’d talk to a therapist about it ASAP. Something told him it wasn’t just a dream…